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Wednesday, April 08, 2009

A new solution has been introduced that promises to change the way organizations implement and manage their core infrastructure via Microsoft Azure’s cloud computing platform. FullArmor’s PolicyPortal, running on Microsoft Azure, can help organization achieve infrastructure optimization leveraging the assets already in place, and without having to invest in incremental management infrastructure, training, labor or services.

According to IDC, organizations that having non-optimized “Basic” core infrastructure practices average a whopping $1,320 per user per year in end-point management and support costs alone. Reducing the high cost of endpoint management, representing 20% of total IT spending at typical companies, represents a great opportunity to meet cost savings goals in today’s frugal environment.

In research, IDC evaluated more than 20 potential best practices and identified three that are consistently used by top-performing IT departments for optimizing Windows desktops and end-point management:

PolicyPortal was designed specifically to help organizations standardize endpoints, centrally manage settings and configuration, and implement comprehensive PC security , all using cloud technology to eliminate the need to install or support an infrastructure to deliver the management best practices. The PolicyPortal solution is able to deliver best practices which drive maturity improvements to Rationalized, moving IT from being perceived as a cost center with uncoordinated manual infrastructure, inefficient management and security risks to a key business enabler with managed and consolidated IT infrastructure and automation.

As a result, PolicyPortal is able to:> reduce end-point management costs to $230 per year, a savings of $1,090 per end point per year;*

Reducing service desk calls by 10% or more;

Improving business agility, allowing organizations to deploy new applications faster by 20%

The most differentiating factor is that these savings can be achieved via PolicyPortal with little / no need for management infrastructure and up-front investment. Providing standardization via the cloud can help reduce investments needed to achieve Rationalized levels of optimization by 50% or more, reducing investment requirements from $100 to $225 per endpoint overall.

The cost savings are the result that with PolicyPortal / Windows Azure instead of needing to purchase, setup, install and manage Windows Server and Active Directory, MDOP and System Center, the organization licenses the end-point management capabilities from the cloud.For many organizations, implementing traditional infrastructure is not an option.

One example of this was Ethiopia government’s ministry of education, who needed to deploy and manage 250,000 end-points throughout the country to support primary and secondary schools and teachers. Installing the necessary Windows infrastructure, System Center and MDOP would be incredibly costly and labor intensive, and was not an option for an emerging economy (even with the assistance of the World Bank) and especially, such a distributed operation.

To support 250,000 endpoints, a typical organization would have to invest over $12M in initial infrastructure and build-out, and an incremental $1.37M per year in annual recurring labor, support contract, energy and space costs.

5 Windows System Center servers ($5,000 each for hardware + $2000 per server for Windows Server 2008 Licensing and System Center),

App-V host servers (usually sized at 1 per every 800 servers, yielding an estimated 300+ servers at $5,000 each for the servers + additional costs for Windows Server 2008 and System Center Enterprise OEs),

Storage (at $5 per GB) and network infrastructure for the data center, an estimated additional $100,000 in hardware and software,

Setup and Deployment labor and services, estimated to be $1,000 per server, or $320,000 in initial fees and burdened labor costs,

On-going administration and support of the server infrastructure, assuming 30 servers managed per administrator, or more than $500,000 per year in services / burdened labor costs,

Data Center build out and lease fees (at $300 per square foot per year for 500 sq feet)> Annual energy consumption (at $1,500 per server per year on average),

Annual support and maintenance contracts on hardware infrastructure of 10-15% per year.

With PolicyPortal, organizations can avoid infrastructure and on-going costs to establish and manage core infrasstructure. The organization can select the best option for endpoint management – on premise or hosted – and help drive faster realization towards the significant benefits of core infrastructure optimization.

* savings are gross without the incremental investment in PolicyPortal / Microsoft Azure.

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About Me

Tom Pisello, The ROI Guy, is a Serial Entrepreneur, Author and CEO / Founder of Alinean, a developer of B2B value selling and marketing messaging, tools and training.
Tom’s value storytelling and financial justification (ROI / TCO) experience began in 1993 with his first entrepreneurial venture, Interpose, acquired by Gartner in 1998, where he served Gartner as a Managing VP.
Post Gartner, Tom has been responsible for launching and accelerating several innovative companies including Full Armor and Connotate Technologies.
Tom holds a BS Electrical Engineering from SUNY at Buffalo, and a mini-MBA from the Crummer School of Business, Rollins College.
Read his latest book on Amazon: The Frugalnomics Survival Guide - How to Use Your Unique Value to Market Better, Stand Out and Sell More (http://www.FrugalnomicsSurvivalGuide.com)